Health News

How the brain biases beliefs: Proposed neural circuit may underlie motivation to cling to desirable notions about the future

People’s motivation to cling to desirable notions about future outlooks results from interactions between prefrontal cortex regions, according to a human neuroimaging study published in JNeurosci. Bojana Kuzmanovic and colleagues uncovered circuits in the brain that support belief updating by asking participants to estimate their own and a peer’s likelihood of experiencing an adverse life […]

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Discovery presents treatment hope for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases

There is new hope for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases following a ground-breaking discovery made by an Australian-Chinese research collaboration. Researchers from the University of South Australia and the Third Military Medical University in China have discovered a signal pathway within cells, and also invented a potential drug that could stop degeneration […]

Health News

Brain iron levels may predict multiple sclerosis disabilities

A new, highly accurate MRI technique can monitor iron levels in the brains of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and help identify those at a higher risk for developing physical disability, according to a study published in the journal Radiology. MS is a disease that attacks three critical components of the central nervous system: the neurons […]

Health News

New nerve gas detector built with Legos and a smartphone

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have designed a way to sense dangerous chemicals using, in part, a simple rig consisting of a smartphone and a box made from Lego bricks, which could help first responders and scientists in the field identify deadly and difficult-to-detect nerve agents such as VX and sarin. The […]